


It's Hard To Dance With A Devil On Your Back, So Shake Him Off

by hummingrightalong



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: M/M, Parallel Universes, donnie gill/grant ward alt timeline, grant ward is not always hydra, hydra ward, triple agent ward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 10:33:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16700836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hummingrightalong/pseuds/hummingrightalong
Summary: Leo Fitz and Donnie Gill come up with a machine capable of showing you the parallel universe version of yourself. Grant has to see. This is mostly my triple agent, not Hydra Grant Ward verse.





	It's Hard To Dance With A Devil On Your Back, So Shake Him Off

**Author's Note:**

> I went pretty wild with this, but I got so excited with this ask because I've been wanting to do a parallel universe fic for this pairing for a while, especially concerning the tech that's mentioned.

Anon Asked: >You looking for prompts right? So how about Ward losing his memories after May ends up hitting in the head way to hard during "Yes,men", which leads to him not siding with Hydra after their uprising. However, the team does discover he IS/was supposed to be hydra anyways. Fitz (like in canon) is the only one who gives him the benefit of thhe doubt. Could end up in romance or not, with Ward recovering his memory or not too.<  
This was such an interesting idea I had to pounce right on it. Hope it’s what you were looking for and thanks for the inspo!!!

***

Fitz gets ready for work first, after they’d both taken time off to care for baby Brody. 

“Are you sure you’re ready?” Ward asks, holding the baby gently with one arm while he took an electric trimmer to the beard he’d grown in the time off.

Truthfully he couldn’t wait to get back to work, even though they’d made a deal and there was no way the specialist would be using his skills the way he once did. Before he and Fitz fell for one another, before he almost lost him, before everything went to hell and they barely scraped by, defeated Hydra and removed Garrett from space and time itself- if the smear left and the tech used to make it had anything to say for that.

“Not necessarily, but Donnie’s texted me and it seems, there’s some sort of excitement down in the lab. It was a nice bit of rest, letting him take over but I have to get my own two hands in on this one,,.” Grant catches eyes with Leo, his new husband and the father of their first child. Secretly he hoped for more, and Leo had a hard time saying no to those brown eyes.

“Is it dangerous?” Leo shrugs, kissing them both while straightening his tie. Grant gives him a look.

Little known fact about Mr. Secret Special Agent? Totally obsessed with current fashion trends, and in his off time he’d been designing his own suits, and giving his input to the tactical department responsible for making the (very) sturdy special gear that agents wore when they knew they’d be stepping into a battle. He wasn’t bad at it either.

“No…” The blond smirks, trying to dart out of the door, but he doesn’t have the leg length (or experience chasing people for a living). “Well..maybe psychologically, but only to those who have a very unstable sense of self…”

“Leo....” Grant hopes his tone is commanding, as he follows the scientist down the hall. It it’s anything but.

“Unless of course there’s some sort of catastrophic mechanical failure.” Grant gives him a ‘what the fuck does that mean look’ and baby Brody gurgles and giggles and whines. Leo coos and makes silly faces, makes a note of his husbands abject horror and decides he’s probably had enough, especially before being left alone with the baby. He stands on his toes, gives him a quick kiss and smiles fondly, stroking his cheek. Grant knows this face. 

This, ‘everything is absolutely under control-’ face is bullshit because its almost always interrupted by, ‘oh, btw, you might wanna duck’. “This is a not bullshit, no ducking, a-ok kinda look sweetheart” how does he do that? “Donnie gave no indication of a mechanical issue...but crazy people should still, and always, maintain a safe distance.”

***

Despite strict orders to take all the rest he needs, and the responsibility of being the sole caretaker of the baby during the day, Grant cleans up and dresses up, prepares all the crazy little necessities of bringing a newborn *anywhere* (and is seriously delighted everytime he does this) to head to main Headquarters. 

He finds himself changing the baby’s clothes at least 4 times, taking goofy pictures every time and sending it to exactly...no one...because all of his friends are at work of course.

The building is an impressive sight to see, even for someone who didn’t major in architecture in academy (the boss requires a regular degree for every graduate- and it comes in handy at work and makes everyone feel a bit more human). Grant isn’t here to admire the building, and by now he knows the exact route to get to his hubby’s personal labs.

Oddly enough he’s greeted by Donnie first.

When Fitz pardoned the kid- and Jemma managed to barely save Seth Dormer’s life- Agent Ward had felt an instant connection. Mr. Gill took time. He was hard, and had suffered, and reminded the agent a lot of himself at that age. The older man was fully in support of saving this kid, giving him a second chance like he had had. 

Ok, he’d had many chances and was thankful for them.

“Alright, what are you working on?” Grant demands after settling Brody with Donnie’s little boy and their babysitter- Seth; the scientist did great work around the agency but his cool California ways meant he liked to take his time. Perfect office babysitter, he never had too much going on.

“Hello to you too asshole. You’re not due back for another couple weeks.” Donnie doesn’t even look up, tweaking- and then beating on- a huge hunk of metal (to Grant’s eyes at least). “What? Little lion man’s working on the finer details. I prefer to get my hands dirty. And he told me not to let you spy on us.” Funny, that was his literal job, and sometimes Agent Gill’s as well. 

They had a lot of fun together, and never one to spare Grant’s feelings (the little shit) Donnie begins to explain in a rather simplified way what this project is all about. Grant braces himself against the sciencey stuff while trying to retain the important parts and not get too offended that he was becoming...predictable

“Leo and I have this theory- about parallel universes. And now we have proof.” Donnie looks like that cat that ate the canary, even though he quietly and quickly adds “we never would’ve had the last bit to make it work safely and effectively if not for him. So thanks for releasing him from purgatory there.”

“Being with me is purgatory?” Dickhead.

Truthfully, the former specialist considered the kid to be (un)officially his and Leo’s first. He was the perfect split of the two of them. They’d nearly lost him a few times while on the bus, Hydra had gotten word of his abilities and they were very interested in passing him off to the highest bidder. 

Agent Ward, the triple agent (pretty proud of that fact) had had to hold back the bile every time he made contact with John Garrett, heard just what plans his associate Bakshi had for the CHILD.

“Oh...here he comes now,” Donnie’s smirk widens, almost impossibly so. What the hell?

“Oh for chrissake Donnie! You let him in? You best not have shown him anything!” The Glasgowegian’s voice rises, so high it squeaks, as it usually did when he was upset or angry.

“I didn’t tell him the best part, but I only think it’s fair he knows.” There’s a few moments of silent challenge between them. No resolution, even when Donnie shrugs and gets back to whatever he was banging on.

“Fair? Fair! No, he’s to have no part of this.” Leo actually stamps his foot- after looking around to make sure his tiny child isn’t around to spook with their argument. 

“Look, he’s being such a twit about this specialist thing, and how long do you think it’s going to be before he slips up and asks for a dangerous assignment? How about we show him how to appreciate what he’s got?” Donnie stands behind him, mouth close enough to his ear that it almost looks obscene. And the way he whispers it to him, he’s like an impish devil on his shoulder, twisting his mind and changing it with every word. Of course the effect is ruined by the fact that Leo was already agreeing with him.

It wasn’t untrue. Grant has the decency to suppress old habits and look ashamed, hanging his head for a moment. 

“It’s not even finished yet...” Leo tries weakly. 

“You know it is.” Donnie is already reading a short list of things not to do, plugging in this and that, attaching a few things to Grant and handing him a small case of specialized contacts that will see what he sees. “So you’ll be you, but you’ll also be *you*.”

What did that mean? In more detail Leo and a few assistants (some of whom has tested it earlier in the day) explain that he’ll almost be stepping into the lives of your parallel selves- feeling what they feel, remembering what they do. If you happen upon a version of yourself that, um… didn’t make it, you get to live their last moments.

“And these will record it all for us, and for you to process later- if you’ve got that clearance.” Some labtech finishes, attaching a few more wires to him and pushing the agent back into a relatively comfortable looking chair. At least in comparison to Koenig’s machine.

***

Grant insists on staying in longer than even Donnie seems comfortable with.

He sees what he thinks is the worst of it, starting at the end and moving backwards. His death a thousand different ways. At the hands of friends, the result of his own mistakes.

Grant *feels* himself really buying into the obvious gaslighting Garrett had attempted (and only this time failed). He sees himself rising in the Hydra ranks.

Even that fails several different ways. More than once he’s the cause of unbelievable suffering for all the people closest to him. 

Once or twice Donnie forgives a betrayal, out of loneliness or insanity they enter into a relationship. It’s unhealthy, it’s violent, even when they make love they hurt each other. Donnie makes him cry talking about how much he’d loved Seth- who is almost always dead or imprisoned and tortured and then dead. Fucking Hydra.

Grant wants to wipe his face, wants to watch Donnie watching the feed on a little screen but he can’t make himself look up. Can’t shake these visions.

The best of it, he sees after he hears Leo whispering about tweaking a setting, about choosing *that* universe, and in the short break the specialist realizes his husband has seen all of this. He thinks he hears a whispered “I’m sorry”. Maybe it’s his own voice. 

The one timeline that doesn’t go to complete shit, but is still missing so much- he was already in Hydra’s hold, tussling with Agent May. A really hard knock to the head and a few days in a medical bay he was ready to go. A few of the original team were acting strangely, suspicious, and Antoine Triplett was there giving Fitz all the reasons why the man couldn’t be trusted.

How frustrating it was to know that something was wrong, feel like he should know what it was, but have no idea why the team wouldn’t let him help with full capacity. Why they watched every move- sometimes got hurt pretty badly doing it. Ultimately they won, and the only person who ever stood by his side was still by his side when it was all over.

Grant comes out exhausted, tripping a little over himself and never feeling more wrecked than every punch, every bullet he’d taken. This was awful. The person he almost was. The endless ways he could have lost Leo. 

Making a promise to himself here and now, he demands for the paperwork it’d require to start the process changing positions around here, for good. He couldn’t do that shit anymore, couldn’t risk himself knowing what it’d do to his family and that THIS WORLD was the only chance he had to get it as right as possible- to live a good life and give that chance to those he cared about.

“Shake it off, love.” The brave man who meant the world to him gave him a stern look, but kissed him gently on the cheek and rubbed his back in small comforting circles. “That’s what I didn’t want you to see. But I suppose it’s good you did. There’s very few times- really two by my personal count- that we get it right. Let’s make the most of it.”

**Author's Note:**

> So somewhere in mine or my gf's tumblr we've got a detailed AU laid out where Ward is a triple agent. Can't find the link but you can send me an ask on tumblr if you're curious.  
> I'm ivebeenmade.tumblr.com


End file.
